Religious Tribunals and Secular Courts: Navigating Power and Powerlessness

Article by: Michelle Greenberg-Kobrin

41 PEPP. L. REV. 997 (2014)

In this Article, I will focus on the various ways that religious systems have attempted to navigate their relationship with the secular legal system and the secular system of values by looking at common law, legislation, and contract. I will think about the conceptualization of how contract can be used both to avoid interference of the secular legal system, as well as to provide the religious legal system with some enforceability. As the use of religious contracts to negotiate the intersection with secular law becomes more popular, contracts could be used to further the aims of those interested in protecting the autonomy of religious legal systems, while still thinking through how notions of basic protection available to both genders in secular law may be available to those interested in religious legal systems, and still balancing interests in equality and contemporary notions of basic rights with the religious legal system.